Springfield Man Convicted of Sexual Exploitation of a Child, Receipt and Possession of Child Pornography

SPRINGFIELD – A Springfield, Mass. man was convicted yesterday, following a 4-day trial, of possession and receipt of child pornography and sexual exploitation of children.

Bairon Ubeda, 45, was convicted by a federal jury of one count of possession of child pornography, one count of receipt of child pornography and one count of sexual exploitation of children. U.S. District Court Judge Brian E. Murphy scheduled sentencing for Nov. 24, 2025. Ubeda was previously indicted in May 2023. At the time, Ubeda was serving a state sentence for aggravated rape and abuse of a child, posing or exhibiting a child in a state of nudity, disseminating child pornography, trafficking of a person for sexual servitude, extortion, larceny, assault and battery and trafficking of a person under 18 years of age for sexual servitude.

Evidence introduced at trial demonstrated that Ubeda carried out a multi-year effort to trick and coerce women using fraudulent social media persona and accounts while claiming to represent a fictitious adult modeling company. Ubeda would trick women targeted by the scheme into providing explicit images as well as personal information and identification. Ubeda would then threaten to make the images and information public if the women did not agree to engage in sexual acts with him. For women with children, Ubeda would threaten to provide the images and information to child protective services so that the women would lose custody of their children.  

Ubeda was charged in federal court after he coerced a woman caught up in a scheme to use a three-year-old minor victim to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing child pornography. Ubeda was also charged with knowingly receiving and possessing that child pornography.

The charge of sexual exploitation of a child provides for a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years and up to 30 years in prison, at least five years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. The charge of receipt of child pornography provides for a mandatory minimum sentence of five years and up to 20 years in prison, at least years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. The charge of possession of child pornography provides for a sentenced of up to 20 years in prison, up to five years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley; Michael J. Krol, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New England; Hampden County Sheriff Nick Cocchi; and Police Superintendent Lawrence Akers of the Springfield Police Department made the announcement today. Valuable assistance was provided by the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lauren Maynard and Mark Grady of the Major Crimes Unit prosecuted the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.